Leverage: Where Angels Fear To Tread
by Gilbert H. Karr
Summary: Injuries are nothing unusual for the Leverage team, and especially not for their hitter. Besides, Eliot is, in the best case, something of a lone wolf. So it isn't odd that an injured Eliot decides to lay low for a couple of days until the team receives a message that worries them for their hitter's safety, and they know that they must find him in time or risk losing him forever.
1. Chapter 1

The single, bare, low-wattage bulb flickered dimly in its socket, the weak light glinting faintly off of the metal bars of the cells. The only sounds in the middle of the night were the buzz of electricity arcing inside the walls behind the ancient fuse box, the gentle snores of the inmates, and the footsteps of the night guard as he made his rounds. Then, there was the sound of running water. It seemed to be coming from the cell at the very end. As he drew closer, he saw a small pool of water running under the bars of the cell. That could mean a broken pipe, a clogged sink or toilet, or any number of things. He couldn't leave it, or the whole place would be flooded by morning.

Turning on his pen light, he shone it around the cell, but it was too dark to see where the water was coming from. Gentle snores told him the occupants of the cell were asleep. He retrieved his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door, shining his light at the sink as he went. Just as he stepped up to the sink, he realized it was not the source of the leak, as it, and everything around it, was dry. As he started to turn back around, something large and heavy hit him over the head, and he crumbled to the floor, unconscious.

The occupant of the cell quickly stripped him, exchanged clothes with him, and dragged him to the cot, holding a pillow over the man's face until he was sure he had stopped breathing. Moving soundlessly, he unlocked the door, slipped through, and locked it again behind him. The guard wouldn't be found until morning, and with any luck, he'd be long gone by then.

He put his visor down, so that if he ran into anyone, they would simply think he was the night guard on patrol. When he gained the freedom of the deserted street, he withdrew a mobile telephone from his pocket, touched a button, and watched in mild amusement while a car pulled around the corner and stopped right in front of him. It was painted to look like a taxi, so that it would draw no undue attention. He climbed in and the car sped off into the night.

(0o0)

Eliot was sitting in the bar, feeling worse by the minute. He had patched himself up, with the help of Parker, and was trying to be social. He had felt better earlier, but was now deciding that that was simply the rush of adrenaline after a successful job. Now, his head was pounding, and one eye was almost swollen shut, not to mention that he could barely move his bad shoulder. He suspected, from the kind of headache that he had, and the intermittent waves of nausea washing over him, that he had a concussion.

He was also supposed to have a date. A friend of his was in town for a short time, passing through on her way back to DC, and he had asked her to dinner to catch up. He had considered cancelling, but she was almost definitely already on her way. Besides, Eliot figured spending some time with her might take his mind off of his injuries.

Just as he had that thought, Parker and Hardison thudded into the booth—Parker next to him—and he gritted his teeth as a wave of pain shot through him. The two newcomers had been chattering jovially, and he was listening quietly, when Hardison looked at him. Really looked at him. The bandaged hand. The hood pulled up over his head. The busted lip and overall rough look of him.

"_Hey man, you really should've let us get you to a doctor," _Hardison said.

Eliot started to shake his head, and stopped when it hurt. "_I hired a nurse."_

_"__That ah boy," Parker said, punching him on the shoulder. _Eliot flinched. "_A little chicken noodle soup."_ She punched him again. "_A little grandmotherly love_"

"_Stop,_" Eliot said to Parker firmly. _Grandmotherly love?_ _If she only knew_.

At that moment, his friend, a tall, sexy blonde, walked into the bar and, spotting him, made her way up to their table. He rose to meet her. Turning back to Hardison, he said, _"This is Nurse Gail." _

Hardison's mouth fell open slightly, and Eliot felt the eyes of both Parker and Hardison on them as he escorted his friend out, while she supported him. Just as they reached the door, Eliot heard Hardison say, "_I don't think she's registered." _Eliot made a mental note to have a talk with the younger man later, about what you don't say about his friends when there's a chance they could overhear.

When they gained the relative privacy of the street, Gail stopped and looked at him at arm's length. "I didn't know this was more than a social call, Eliot. What happened?"

"Just had to deal with some Russians for a case I was working on. I'll live."

"Are you sure?"

Eliot smiled at that. "Well, under your care, I'm pretty sure I'll pull through."

"If we do things my way, I'm pretty sure you will, too."

(0o0)

**TWO DAYS LATER…**

Nate paced back and forth in front of the screens in the meeting area of his apartment, waiting for the others to arrive. One by one, they did so, until all of them were in attendance except for Eliot. _He couldn't possibly still be with his date from the other night, could he?_ Nate immediately dismissed the idea as foolish. Touching his earbud, he said, "Eliot? Where are you?"

No answer. Not even static.

Seeing the look on the Mastermind's face, Hardison immediately pulled up the tracking feature he had built into the earbuds and searched for Eliot's earbud.

Still nothing.

That was odd. If the earbud was turned off, it was still GPS trackable. If it was damaged, it would show up offline. But it shouldn't just not show up at all. It was as though the man had dropped off the face of the earth. An uneasy feeling swept over Hardison as he considered the implications of that.

"Hardison," Nate said, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to reality. "I need all the information you can find for me on the woman Eliot left the bar with two nights ago. Does anyone even know her name?"

"Eliot introduced her as Nurse Gail," Parker said. At Nate's tilted head and confused look, she spoke again. "Hardison told him he should've let us get him to a hospital, and he said he had hired a nurse. I was expecting an older woman. When she walked in, Eliot introduced her as Nurse Gail."

"He was joking, Parker. She wasn't really a nurse."

"I don't know. They walked out together like they were old friends, and she was looking him over on the sidewalk outside."

Leave it to Parker to be the perceptive one of the bunch.

"Probably agreeing on pricing and services," Hardison said.

"Name's worth checking into, though," Nate replied.

Hardison nodded.

(0o0)

Hardison was seated at the dining table in Nate's apartment, still searching any available source he could find for any sign of Eliot or the woman he left the bar with. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he jumped when Nate laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Any luck?"

"No." Hardison shook his head. "Nothing. There are dozens or maybe hundreds of military nurses with some variation of Gail in their first or middle name, but none whose pictures match the woman who walked into the bar and out with Eliot. Of course, Eliot isn't exactly forthcoming about his friends, and she may not even be a nurse."

"And Eliot?"

"As for Eliot, none of the contact numbers I have for him work, he isn't answering his phone and he's turned off the GPS tracking. He's in the wind, man"

Sophie and Nate exchanged glances and the uneasiness flashed like lightning between them.

"Let's start at Eliot's house," Nate said.

"Okay. I assume you know where it is?" Hardison asked.

"Eliot wasn't exactly forthcoming about that, either."

"You mean, we don't have an address at all, not even in the fake employment paperwork?" asked Sophie.

"Well, he's given us several addresses. I don't know if any of them are legitimate." Hardison answered, thinking hard.

"What do we have to lose?"

(0o0)

When all was said and done, they came up with four possible addresses. The team piled into Lucille, prepared to drive to each one, until they found their friend. The first was an old wooden storage building/barn type structure, weathered with age, with windows covered with dirt and grime. Nate used an old towel to rub a peephole through the dust and grime. All he saw was a row of what appeared to be classic cars, covered with cloth and a thin layer of dust, and taking up every square inch of space inside the building. There was no way this could be the right place.

The second address was a vacant lot. There were two narrow trails worn into the grass, evenly spaced, and a large square of space where the tall grass was bent over. Nate tilted his head sideways and looked at it, as though trying to figure out where this piece fit into the rest of the puzzle. There was absolutely nowhere to store anything, nor was there any sort of shelter.

The third address was not even GPS trackable, and the team was forced to use a compass to find the location ("old school," as Hardison would call it), of a cave that was worn in the side of a mountain, in the middle of nowhere, and at the top of a surprisingly steep mountain trail. Breathing heavily as they walked up on it, Nate shone a flashlight inside, wondering as he did so, what these places had to do with their friend, if indeed, they weren't simply random coordinates he had used as addresses to serve his purpose at the time. Nate's gut told him that Eliot wouldn't use random coordinates, (at least, not like this) and in his experience, Eliot had a purpose for everything he did. The object now was to figure out what the purpose was for this, and when he did that, Nate couldn't help but feel he would understand some things about his friend that he didn't understand currently, though he was forced to wonder if his ignorance truly was bliss, under the circumstances.

"Nate, you should have let me look these places up on satellite imagery," Hardison said, panting slightly as he brought up the rear.

"That wouldn't have told us which one he was using, if he is using any of them," Parker said quietly. She took a water bottle out of her pocket, unscrewed the lid, and took a long drink.

"Well, he keeps his secrets well, doesn't he?" Sophie mused.

"Let's go."

The fourth and final address was an apartment building on the edge of the old part of the city. The apartments were above a popular tack shop that sat on the ground floor. The building was well kept and clean, though the architectural style was a clear sign of the building's age. Nate wasn't sure what to do. He was pretty sure that Eliot, if he were home, wouldn't appreciate them barging in uninvited, and he was even more sure that the man wouldn't like the fact that they tracked him down. They didn't know for sure which apartment was Eliot's and the last thing they needed was to be arrested or shot for breaking and entering into the wrong apartment. He walked into the tack shop, thinking hard.

"Can I help you?" asked a cheerful voice. Nate looked up to see an attractive red head about Eliot's age, dressed in a denim mini skirt, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots studying him from beside the rack of flannel shirts she had paused in straightening.

Nate just stared at her for a moment, then he recovered himself and found his voice. "Do you live here?"

"In the shop?" She asked, amused.

"Well, no, in one of the apartments above the shop," he answered.

"Yes. Are you looking for Doctor Abernathy?"

"Yes, we are, but how did you know that?"

"He said a small group of people might come in looking for him. Asked me to give you this."

She handed him an envelope and turned back to the jeans she was now folding or re-folding and placing on shelves.

"Which apartment does Doctor Abernathy live in?"

"He said to tell you that everything you need to know is in that envelope."

"Thank you."

Knowing they had all of the information they would get from the shop-keeper, Nate headed back to Lucille, with the rest of the team. When the doors closed, they all spoke at once. Nate let out a shrill whistle and they all fell silent.

"Here," he said, handing the envelope to Parker. "It has your name on it."

Parker took the envelope from the mastermind, slipped her finger under the flap on the top, and opened it. She turned the paper over in her hands, for a moment, not really seeing it, but trying to figure out why Eliot would have addressed the letter to her. Very slowly, she unfolded the letter, and began to read silently.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This chapter is a bit shorter than the first, but gives some important information. I don't own Leverage of any of the characters therein, except those of my own creation. I write for fun and not for profit. I don't write slash. Reviews really make my day. Thank you to all who have read, followed, favorited, and reviewed. I feel very loved. I hope you enjoy. **

Chapter 2:

Parker felt the eyes of the rest of the team on her as she unfolded the letter. She couldn't help but notice that Eliot had really nice handwriting for a guy.

_Parker, _

_If you are reading this, you've found at least part of the trail I laid, carefully, over the time the team has worked together. I suspected this day would come, sooner or later. I'm addressing this letter to you because we do the things the others can't…won't. Remember what I taught you. _

_I'm not going to tell you why I left or where I've gone. Nate won't like that, and you probably don't either, but it's necessary, Parker. This is the only way I could keep you all safe. I need you to trust me on that. Once word gets out that I have disappeared, my life is forfeit. No matter what happens—how this turns out—I won't be coming back to you. I'm sorry I had to tell you that so bluntly, but I need you to accept that part, right now, so you don't go into what follows compromised. The team doesn't need to know that part, under any circumstances. _

Parker stopped reading, willing herself to steadiness. She wasn't crying—not exactly. It was more like her soul was screaming at what she had just read. She fought to get herself under control, determined to do as Eliot wished, and not let the rest of the team see that there was something wrong. Sophie saw that she had stopped reading and laid a hand on her arm. She looked up, startled, to see Nate, watching her expectantly. She shook her head and looked down at the letter again. As she saw what the next words said, she started to read out loud.

_"__I'm sure, by now, that Nate is wanting to know what this letter says, so you may read this part of it out loud to the team, if you wish._

_"__Nate, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was leaving, but it had to be this way to ensure the safety of my team…my family. I have laid out extensive backup plans to a network of trusted people who will protect you all. You may or may not see them, but I assure you, they are there. They will make contact if the need arises, and you may make contact with them by saying the phrase "LONE WOLF" aloud. You are free to go about business as usual, but please do not come after me. Doing so will only put my friends in unnecessary danger and possibly cause harm to you, too, not to mention making everyone's jobs harder. If you feel the need to hire a permanent hitter as part of the team, there's a small leather bound notebook in the top right drawer of my desk which has some names in it. I will make contact again, if I can, but if you don't hear from me, please know how much this time with all of you has meant to me. You are some of the finest people I've ever had the pleasure of working with."_

_"_Damn," Nate said, frustrated. When Parker finished reading, she folded the letter carefully and concealed it in an inside pocket. Feeling Nate's eyes on her, she looked up and said, "What?"

"Where did Eliot go? Why did he leave?"

"I don't know. He didn't say."

"Well, what did he say," Nate asked, frustrated.

"I read the part he gave me permission to read."

'That's just great. I guess we might as well go back to the bar."

(0o0)

The "night guard" looked out the window as the taxi moved rapidly through the deserted streets. He marveled that he could hear someone's dog (or maybe it was a stray) barking off in the distance. Most of the larger cities of the world had a robust night life, and the night was almost as crowded and noisy as the day. He had to remind himself that this wasn't a large city. It wasn't even a medium sized town. This was a small town, of the kind that rolled up the sidewalks at 8pm, and everyone was safe at home, warm in their beds, asleep. His mind told him not to stop here…not to stop at all until he reached the airport, but there was something he needed. It would only take a moment, if there was no trouble. If there was, well. He'd dealt with trouble many times before. He was pulled from his thoughts when the car stopped in front of a rather large house. He got out of the car, slipped off into the house, and then, fifteen minutes later, he came out, dragging something behind him. He left whatever it was in the garden, got back into the car and motioned the driver to move on back into the night.

Then, he pushed the button to close the glass that separated the driver from the passengers in the back seat, and opened the bag he had brought with him when he came back out. Quickly, he changed clothes, folding those he had had on neatly and placing them back in the bag. He would dispose of them later.

(0o0)

As soon as the team was back in familiar territory, Nate had Hardison begin the search, once again, for any sign of the girl Eliot was with. He hoped she could give them some perspective on the situation. However, after several hours of looking, he had to concede that she had disappeared as well.

"Hardison, I want you to go back through all of our old cases with a fine toothed comb and check to be sure everything is still as it should be."

"What do you mean, Nate?"

"Just make sure everyone was who we thought they were, everyone we destroyed is still destroyed, everyone we put in jail is still there."

"On it."

"Nate, what are you thinking?"

"Listen, Eliot left for a reason. Now it may have had something to do with us—with one of our cases—or it may not have. I just want to be sure we've covered all of our bases, and that if he has left us a trail to follow, we don't miss it."

What Nate didn't say was that he didn't know what else to do. He had always suspected, (okay, known) that Eliot was capable of disappearing without a trace, if he wanted to do so, but in the past years, as the team worked together and slowly became more than a team, he had come to believe that Eliot trusted them enough (him, enough) not to leave without telling them. But now, it appeared that even that assessment was incorrect.

At that moment, a loud beeping sound issued from Hardison's computer, making everyone in the room jump. Hardison toggled back to look at the new information, and a moment later, he threw a fist in the air triumphantly and said, "Found her."

"What?" Nate asked, afraid he hadn't heard correctly.

"Well, while I was working on combing back over all of our old cases, I had another window scanning social media sites for any variation of the name Gail, in DC, with the assumption that she was actually a nurse and a description of her, as best I could remember. I didn't actually find her. I found a picture of her under the name of Theresa Gay on social media, but the page is dark."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning there hasn't been any activity on it in months."

"So how does that help us?"

"It gives us a picture, and with a picture, we can set the facial recognition software to scan for her. Might help us find her faster."

"All right. I guess that's the best we can do for now." He rose and moved over to the door of his apartment, stopping before he opened it, but not turning around.

"Let me know when you find something."

"Where are you going?" Sophie asked.

"Down to the bar to think."


	3. Chapter 3

Parker slipped out of the team's headquarters when everyone else was occupied. She needed to think, to process what she had read, and she needed some information, and had an idea about how to get it. She looked around, trying not to be obvious about what she was doing. Eliot's letter had said that he had an extensive network of friends he trusted watching the team. She couldn't see anyone out of the ordinary. Either they weren't really there, or they were very good at what they did. There was only one way to find out.

She sat down on a bench at the edge of the park, looking out over the grassy fields. "Lone Wolf," she said. For a long moment, nothing happened, and she had just about convinced herself that nothing would happen, when a person sat down beside her. She started to turn to look and see who it was, but a voice said, "Don't look around and don't mention names. Look straight ahead and ask your questions."

"I need to know what he meant when he said his life is forfeit."

The silence drew out, until she thought she wouldn't get an answer, then came a tired sigh, and the voice said, "Because of the nature of his job in the service, he carries information that makes any sort of disappearance dangerous. If his whereabouts cannot be verified within seventy two hours, the council will be notified, and they will issue orders to kill him, as a matter of National Security. If he is found within that time, he will be examined by the council to determine if the information he carries was compromised, and a decision will be made at that time as to what will be done with him."

"So he thinks this-this information he carries will be compromised? Is that what he's saying?"

"Not necessarily. It is likely that he is trying to prepare you for such an event, in case it were to happen. He's a valuable asset, and one that they will not give up easily."

"This doesn't make sense. Why would his military friends want to kill him?"

"No one said it was his friends who would want him found, although I am sure they would also like to know where he is."

"So we have three days to find him?"

"After that time, I am duty bound to report him missing. Anyone in the military who knows of this is. Not doing so would be considered an act of treason."

"I see." She fell silent, and sat there for a while, trying to process what the faceless voice had told her. When she felt she could face the team, she rose to leave, and it was only then that she realized the bench was empty except for her. She slipped back inside their headquarters, hoping not to be seen, as she didn't want to face the rest of the team at the moment. It was only a matter of time before they started asking questions—questions that Eliot had made it clear she couldn't answer.

(0o0)

Nate walked slowly down a long hallway, growing more nervous as he approached the door to the office he was visiting. He wasn't really supposed to be here, and if he was caught, he was sure to go back to jail. Swallowing hard at that thought, he took care to be less conspicuous than he felt. He approached the door and knocked on it. "Come," a quiet voice said. He turned the knob, and then caught his foot on a raised place in the carpet around the door jamb. Grabbing for the door frame, he fell inside the office door, catching himself at the last moment.

An amused voice said, "Well, Mister Ford, that was quite an entrance you made. Why don't you come sit down and have some tea and tell me what it is I can do for you?"

His voice was little more than a whisper. "I need to tell you something, off the record, and for the safety of one of our people, I need you to keep everyone else out of it."

"I can't promise that until I know what it is you want to tell me."

He leaned forward and spoke so low that she almost didn't hear him.

"I need to know if you know a Nurse Gail?"

The expression on her face didn't change, and she leaned back in her chair, studying Nate carefully. Finally, she said, "I know several of them. Why?"

Nate didn't answer her, but asked another question instead. "Do any of the ones you know also know Eliot?"

"Again, several of them do. We were on the same team, so it stands to reason we know many of the same people. I take it this has something to do with Eliot?"

Nate had known that he was taking a risk coming here, but he wasn't sure what else to do.

"Kitty, I'm not even sure I should be here. Eliot made it clear he doesn't want any of us involved in this, so I'm taking a risk coming here."

"If there is something going on with Eliot, you need to tell me." Doc's voice had a quality that Nate had never heard in it before, though he wasn't sure what it was, exactly.

Nate eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"

"I'm not at liberty to share that with you, though it is a matter of life and death. I need you to trust me, Nathan."

He couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud. Leaning forward, in a voice just a little more than a whisper, he said, "Eliot has disappeared. I need to know if he is working on something for you all."

She rose faster than anyone had a right to do, placed a finger to her lips and motioned to him to follow her. She stalked down the long hallway, so fast that he could barely keep up. She stopped abruptly in front of another door, wrenching it open. Nate barely stopped without running into her. A temperature change indicated that they were in a tunnel, and she moved through it with purpose. Nate was breathing hard when she stopped outside of another door and knocked three times fast.

"Enter," said a voice. She opened the door wide and held it, ushering Nate into the room. She walked in after and locked the door behind them. The man behind the desk stood when he saw her, and Nate swallowed hard at the size of the large man. He knew Vance, of course, but he had not realized until now just how large a man he was.

"Kitty?" He asked, questioning.

Kitty motioned Nate to a seat in front of the desk. She sat next to him, and the tall man sat down across from them.

"Colonel Vance, Is this room secure?"

He looked hard at her for a moment, then nodded once, realizing she had asked the question for Nate's benefit. She looked at Nate.

"Ask him the question you asked me."

"I'm not even sure it's a good idea for me to be here."

"Mister Ford, why _did _you come here?"

"Eliot trusts you, and I don't know too many people I can trust in this situation."

Colonel Vance looked hard at the two of them. "What's going on?"

Nate spoke quietly. "Eliot was injured pretty badly on our last job. We know he hired a nurse, and we have reason to believe she was a friend of his and a military nurse. Now, he's gone. My first thought was that he might be involved in something with you. So now I'm asking—Do you know the whereabouts of Eliot Spencer?"

Vance rose without a word, and moved over to a side bar in his office. He picked up a carafe and poured coffee into one of the cups sitting there and then another.

"Coffee, Mister Ford?" Doc asked.

He shook his head, still intent on the matter at hand. Vance came back over to his desk, handing one of the cups to Doc before he moved around and sat down in his desk chair once again. Finally, he said, "No. I don't. In fact, this is the first I've heard of it. I can check with a few others who might know, though. May I ask how you came to know about this?"

"I'd rather not say."

"It might be important."

Nate thought hard for a moment, then made a quick decision. He either trusted them or he didn't.

"We traced down each of the addresses he gave to the team over the time he has worked with us, and over the course of doing that, we ran into someone who gave us a letter addressed to Parker. In it, Eliot said goodbye and asked us not to come after him." Nate fell silent, unsure how much he should tell. Doc and Vance exchanged glances. This didn't sound good.

Kitty asked, "What do you know about this Nurse you said he hired?"

"We haven't been able to find her, but Hardison found some information online that indicates she's a military nurse. He introduced her as Nurse Gail."

He looked at Kitty. "Precautions." She nodded. Then, Vance speared Nate with a steady gaze. The older man grew uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny, but kept his gaze locked with Vance's. Finally Vance said, "Let me do some checking and I'll have some information for you this afternoon. Where can I find you?"

"I'll leave my number with Kitty. When you find out, call or text me and I'll meet you somewhere. I think the less said over electronic communications, the better."

Vance nodded. Noted. "Mister Ford, I'm going to ask you to do something for me."

"What's that?"

"Keep everything we've discussed in here between us. Eliot's life may depend on it."

Nate nodded, and moved to the door. Before he opened it, he turned back and looked at the two of them. "Thank you."

(0o0)

The taxi stopped at the entrance to the smaller airport, and by all accounts, a soldier got out. He walked straight into the men's room, and when he was sure he was alone, he barricaded the door so no one could disturb him. Then, he went into one of the stalls, climbed up on the toilet seat and pushed a ceiling tile aside, retrieving a bag. Careful not to make too much noise, he changed clothes. Quickly donning clean work pants, a long sleeved shirt, sleeveless jacket and tennis shoes, he should blend into the crowd at almost any airport. He completed the look with sunglasses and a hat.

Looking into the bag, he smiled with satisfaction. His man had done well. There was a passport, plane ticket, and reading material, among other things meant to make him look like just another traveler. By the time anyone found out otherwise, it would be far too late.

Discarding his old clothes and exiting the restroom, he joined the line to get through security checkpoints. If he timed it correctly, the plane would be boarding by the time he reached his gate.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

"What do you think, Kitty?" The two senior military officers were still seated in Vance's office, recovering somewhat from the news Nate Ford had just dropped on them.

"I think I'd like to talk to this Nurse Gail, and I think I'd like to do it as quickly as possible." Kitty spoke quietly.

"Agreed. How?" Vance asked.

"I'm still thinking about that."

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, then another thought occurred to Doc, and she spoke aloud. "So, Eliot went into this—whatever this is—without calling either team for backup. What does that tell us?"

"Maybe a couple of things—might be the kind of mission where he doesn't want to risk his friends, so he hired his backup. Could be it was a simple mission that didn't require backup."

"Could be he thinks he can handle it himself. The damned fool." The tone was affectionate enough, and she had been down this road before with Eliot. With both of them, truth be told. So he guessed she was entitled to be a little frustrated.

"Kitty," he said, quietly.

She continued. "And we don't know that he didn't contact any of his military friends, just that he didn't contact us."

"I can find that out this afternoon, as well as who he might have hired, if he hired anybody. A few well placed questions here, a whisper there,—" he broke off as he saw the look on Doc's face. "What is it?"

"I think we need to be very careful with the questions we ask, and with whom we ask them."

Vance gave her a hard look, so she continued. "While it is true that Eliot has a lot of friends in DC, he also has quite a few enemies here, and not all of them are under our control."

He nodded once. Noted and logged. They each had their assignments, and they knew what intel they needed for the mission at hand. There was nothing more to say. Vance looked at his watch. It was just after oh-nine-hundred.

"Meet back here at 14:00 hours," he said. "Call me if you have something sooner."

Doc nodded. "14:00 it is."

(0o0)

Vance silently contemplated what he and Doc had said to one another, and also what they _hadn't_ said. She was right when she said that Eliot had some enemies here, and he also had some acquaintances who were neither friend nor enemy, and who could be both, as the occasion warranted. He knew it was the council that Doc was most worried about. If he were truthful, that's who he was the most worried about as well.

They had both tried to talk the man out of joining—hell, he never wanted anyone on his team to join the shadow forces, as they were called on the inside—joining the black ops was bad enough, and he knew that none of them had clean hands in that respect. But over and above that, there were the ghosts. Those men who were the stuff of legends, who entered and left places by dark of night, or in broad daylight, leaving no trace of their presence or anything else behind. An elite team who completed the missions no one else could manage. A team whose very presence was rumored in whispers behind closed doors, but could not be verified. They were the ones who stood in the gap, the last resort when all else failed. And they answered to the council—to one another, and to themselves. He hadn't wanted his friend, a man who was like a brother to him, to join, but in the end, Eliot hadn't really had a choice. Once his unique talents had been discovered, he had been targeted. He tried to resist, but they just kept looking until they found something they could hold over him. Vance never knew what it was, but it had to be something major if they were able to use it to force his cooperation.

Doc was right. They needed to find Eliot before the council did. They might just kill him to keep their presence a continued secret, not to mention for any information he might be carrying that would make him a liability to them.

Vance breathed a heavy sigh and settled in to work.

(0o0)

Doc returned to her office, having an idea of where she might start to look for one military nurse named Gail. Doc assumed that any computer searches on military computers were monitored. So, she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a thumb drive, which she plugged into her computer. Touching buttons in a particular sequence, as Shelley had taught her to do, the system bypassed the computer's operating system and opened a window to a secret server on a ghost web. She ordered the computer to show files of any medical personnel who would have had a chance to be in the proximity of Boston in the past two weeks, and to cross reference those with nurses with Gail in their name.

Moments later, the computer spit out five names. She skimmed their travel histories and their leave requests as quickly as she could, and realized that two of them were in the right place at the right time. One of those reported in to Hanscom Air Base in Bedford, Massachusetts to change her mode of transport when she received word her orders had changed and she was set to return to her home base more quickly than she was supposed to do so. Doc doubted she met with anyone. She would find out in a matter of moments. The other one was scheduled for her duty shift just down the hall any minute now. Shutting down the window, she pulled the flash drive out of her computer and placed it back in her desk drawer.

Then she reached for the phone on her desk. As she did so, it started to ring.

(0o0)

Vance started with members of his own team—knowing which ones were safe to ask, as well as which were likely to know. After an hour of phone calls and well placed questions, Vance had exhausted nearly all of his 'safe' contacts, and still wasn't any closer to finding out whom, if anyone, Eliot had hired. He certainly hadn't asked any of his military contacts for help, which was odd, unless he was on the type of mission in which no one could help him.

Vance couldn't help but think there was something they were missing. Eliot had always been a loner, yes. That was what had made him so good at so many of the missions he completed. Contrary to what Doc had said when she was angry, they both knew Eliot was smarter than average. Still, something wasn't adding up in his mind, though he couldn't exactly put his finger on what it was. He wanted to ask Ford more questions, and would do so when they met this afternoon. As he was thinking about where to go next with his research, the telephone on his desk rang. He answered it, listened for a few moments, and then left his office in a hurry.

(0o0)

Moments later, he opened the door that led out into the Navy yard, wondering why Doc had asked him to meet her here. Doc stuck her head out from where she was working when she heard the door open. "Colonel, we need to talk. Join me on board?" She motioned vaguely behind her, and for the first time, Vance realized that the plane Doc used to teach her medics about air emergencies and rescue at altitude was being fueled up behind her. He thought for a moment, nodded once, and climbed aboard.

Once they were seated, she didn't seem to be ready to talk about why she had called him here, so he spoke first.

"Did you find her?"

"That's what we're about to find out—if you choose to accompany me, that is."

At that, he looked at her sideways. "We're supposed to meet our contact this afternoon."

"Yes, and I would like to have something to tell him when we see him."

"I think I need a little more, Commander."

"As you wish, Colonel. As I was researching our mission, I received a telephone call from a base to the North, requesting my presence while they question a nurse on their medical staff, who has been AWOL for the past thirty six hours. They think she might have stolen some sensitive material, but she didn't return with it, and she has no recollection of where she has been for the past two days, nor of anyone she was with. When she returned, she was caught trying to steal drugs from the dispensary at the base hospital. I thought you might want to hear what she has to say."

He nodded once, and she toggled a switch on the table in front of her, informing the pilot they were ready for takeoff.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This is a shorter chapter than normal, but it contains some important information, so I wanted to go ahead and publish it now. **

**Normal disclaimers apply: I don't own Leverage or any of the characters or worlds within, except those of my own creation. I write for fun and not for profit, and I make no money off of any of this. I don't write slash. **

**Thank you to all of those who take the time to read, follow, favorite, and review my stories. Each one makes me feel loved. Reviews make my day, make me do a happy dance, and help me to improve my writing. Besides that, I'm dying to know what you think, so please keep them coming. I hope you enjoy Chapter 5: **

When the plane landed a little over an hour later, the two high ranking officers descended on the base as though they owned the place. Doc was met by the base doctor, who led them into his office. Doc was surprised and somewhat shocked to see that the clearly terrified woman was surrounded by MPs.

"What is going on, Doctor?"

"The Lieutenant has been AWOL for the past thirty six hours, and when she returned, she went straight to the dispensary and started going through the cabinets and packing boxes. We caught her when she left, but she claims to have no recollection of anything over the past thirty six hours, or of packing the boxes she was carrying when she was found."

"And what is it you want from me?"

"I'm a little outside my area of expertise here, but I'm told this sort of thing is your specialty. Please talk to her—maybe help her remember what happened, and make a recommendation both on a course of treatment, and on appropriate disciplinary action."

"All right. I'll need a private place to do the tests I'll need, and I'll need the Colonel's assistance," she said, nodding at Vance. "Please have your MPs wait in the hallway, as she may need an escort to the brig when this is sorted out."

When the MPs were safely in the hallway, with the door closed and locked behind them, Doc addressed the woman in front of her.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Katherine Carrington, MD, out of the Surgeon General's office. The gentleman with me is Colonel Vance."

The young woman nodded nervously, but didn't offer her own name. Doc looked at her expectantly, and when she didn't answer, Doc asked, "And you are?"

The young woman shook her head. "I don't know."

"Stealing drugs from the dispensary. That's a rather serious charge that has been leveled against you, Lieutenant. Would you care to explain yourself?"

She ducked her head, not sure she could make the new doctor or the Colonel believe her, if she told them the story. It was rather far fetched after all.

That particular look wasn't lost on Doc, and she studied the young woman carefully. When her detainee didn't speak, she did.

"You have nothing to fear from me if you tell me the truth." Still the young woman didn't speak.

"I've reviewed your record, Lieutenant, and I must say, it is stellar. This is the first whiff of any wrongdoing the military has ever seen from you. Now, I hope you don't expect me to believe that an officer with an otherwise stellar record suddenly starts stealing drugs from the base hospital for no reason. I suspect there is something else happening here, and I'd like to help you salvage your career, if you'll let me." Doc gazed at her appraisingly.

The young woman nodded.

"I-I don't remember anything. I feel like I should know this place, these people, and should remember what happened, but I don't." The young woman was practically shaking with fear, and Doc felt the waves of tension rolling off of her.

"Take it easy, Lieutenant," Doc said quietly. The young woman gave her a sideways look, and Doc spoke again. "I'm going to do everything I can to bring the memories you've lost back to you, but I need you to trust me and I need you to do what I tell you to do."

The young woman nodded. "What happens if this doesn't—" she broke off, unable to go any further with that thought.

"Doesn't what?" Doc asked.

"What happens if it turns out that I'm—that I've done what they say I did?"

"We'll deal with that when the time comes. Let's not meet trouble halfway," Doc replied gently.

"Knowing's better than not, I guess." She looked Doc in the eye for the first time, and Doc was pleased to see a hint of the spark that must usually be a part of her personality. "I'll be grateful for any help you can give me."

"Good. Thank you. I want to start with a physical exam, so that we can compare that to your service record to establish a baseline."

The young blonde nodded and glanced at Vance. Taking the hint, Vance said, "I'll wait outside."

Doc shook her head slightly and said, "Why don't you start the process of having the Lieutenant here released into our custody? I believe it requires some paperwork. There are a couple of things I want to do which will require the facilities of my lab at Walter Reed."

Vance nodded and left the room.

The Lieutenant swallowed hard at that, wondering what was in store for her, but Doc's face gave nothing away.

"So, what are we going to do now," asked the young Lieutenant in Doc's care.

"I'm going to inform my pilot that we'll be ready for takeoff in about twenty minutes or a little less, and you are going to accompany me. After that, we will use the facilities aboard to complete your physical exam, and then we will talk about where this is going to go from there. All right?"

"Okay."

(0o0)

Parker was seated at Eliot's desk in what they all affectionately called the treatment room, just off of Nate's apartment, which had become the team's headquarters, looking for the book Eliot had mentioned in the letter he wrote to the team. The thief still wasn't sure why Nate wanted it, and being in this room, without Eliot, felt…strange. After all, they were still trying to find any information available about the woman Eliot had called Nurse Gail, and she couldn't help feeling that her time would be better spent out looking for her. A moment later, a chime sounded on the computer sitting on Eliot's desk, and Parker looked up just in time to see something happen. A small window popped up on the larger display screen, and she watched in horror as the screen filled with blurred action, which coalesced into search dogs on leashes, swarming the grounds of a large estate.

Moments later, a dark haired man strode in front of the camera's viewfinder, barking orders in a foreign language. He looked familiar, but Parker couldn't quite place him. After a moment, he stopped and looked straight at the camera, realizing it was recording. His next words were short and to the point.

"The fox has flown the chicken coup. I need some assistance to get it back, my friend."

The screen went dark, and Parker continued looking for the book Nate had asked her to find. She pulled it out, looked at it like she had found the grand prize in a box of Cracker Jacks, and set it in her lap. Half a minute later, the implications of what she had just seen hit her like a lightning bolt, and she froze. She tried to rewind the short video stream so she could watch it again, but it was apparently live.

Then, the face and the name collided in her mind. _General Flores. San Lorenzo. Eliot's friend. _A giant squishy ball of anxiety began rolling around in her gut, threatening to slosh out all over the place. She touched the com in her ear.

"Nate, we have a problem."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

Nate had gathered the rest of the team in front of the larger screens, and had Hardison working to re-establish contact with Flores, and simultaneously scanning news feeds worldwide to see what information had been released, or had gotten out, and also what they might glean from it, in the event that it took a while to make contact with Flores.

The formerly dark screen was filled with colors, and the colors coalesced into a picture of two men, standing side by side, behind a very official looking desk. When the picture was fully clear, Nate said, "President Vittore, General Flores—what has happened?"

"He escaped, Ford. Early this morning. We found the night guard in his cell, dead. I sent word to the Commander as soon as I learned of it. I wanted to ask for his help, but I assume that won't be possible, since you all are making contact and he isn't present."

Nate's internal alarm system was blazing a klaxon call inside of him. _Eliot, the Commander, as Flores knew him, was missing, and Moreau had escaped. Were the two related?_ Knowing the other man still required his attention, he tried to pull himself together.

"Do you have any idea where he went?" Nate asked, wanting to delay having to tell Flores that his friend was missing, and really not wanting to tell him that the Leverage team couldn't help him. Though he didn't see how it was possible, without Eliot. He was the one who had worked for Moreau, who knew the man's habits and how he worked. He was the one who had gotten them so close the last time.

Sophie caught his eye off screen, and motioned for him to tell Flores about Eliot missing. Almost imperceptibly, Nate shook his head.

"No, we don't. He was very careful. He didn't breathe a word to anyone about where he was going." Flores trailed off, thinking. Then he turned to the President and said something in not quite Spanish, or at least, not the Spanish Nate was used to speaking. Might be a dialect, or a mixture of Spanish and some other language—Portuguese, perhaps. The President moved over to his desk, half out of the frame, picked up and dialed the telephone, and had a rapid fire conversation with someone.

"What can we do to help?"

"Help us find him, for the world's sake. Maybe the one on your team who was good with computers—maybe he can help us with that. And be careful. We wanted to warn you all, in case he shows up your way."

"Surely it will take him a while to get the resources together to come this far."

"Maybe not. He stopped off at his old estate. We found Ribera.." He paused. "I'll spare you the details. Let it suffice to say he was found hanging upside down in the front garden. He was dead—killed in a way that was meant to send a message." The man's face darkened, but he didn't elaborate. "From what we can tell, he took enough to re-establish much of the life he used to live and to go anywhere he wants to go besides."

Nate nodded once.

"I must go. The President and I must figure out how to give this news to the people. Please keep us informed."

"Will do. You do the same."

The computer screen went suddenly to black, and the four members of the Leverage team who were there just stared at one another. Finally, Sophie spoke, "Why didn't you tell them Eliot was missing?"

"Over a non-secure channel? I'm not sure we need to let that information out where it could potentially be intercepted."

"So where does this leave us?"

"I don't think we have a choice. We go to ground." Seeing the look on their faces, he spoke again. "Listen, we can't assume that Moreau won't be looking for us. No, until we know where he is, and what he's up to, we have to become ghosts. That means we hole up—no electronics, no paper trails, none of our known aliases—nothing that can trace back to us. Understand?"

They all nodded and the worried looks on their faces were not lost on him, but he chose not to comment.

(0o0)

Doc was seated in her office on her plane with the Lieutenant she was trying to help seated across from her. The Lieutenant's eyes were closed, and Doc had been trying to help her remember anything she could about where she had been over the past day and a half. Frustrated, the younger woman opened her eyes and said, in a tone full of sarcasm, "Damn it, I've already told you I can't remember."

"I'll thank you to remember you're talking to a superior officer," Doc snapped, immediately angry with herself for doing so. It wasn't like she hadn't heard the language before. Almost all of the men on her team had said something similar or worse when injured or when she was probing their psyche. She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

"I-I'm sorry, Doctor Carrington," exclaimed the Lieutenant, mildly horrified she had spoken the way she had.

Doc held up a hand. "Forget it. We're both frustrated."

"I hate that this isn't working."

"Well, when we get back to my lab, there's a new technology which is proving to be somewhat beneficial in cases like this. That's something we could try. It is still in the testing phase, but since I'm one of the people running the trial…"

"What does it do?"

"It reads your brain's newest neural connections to discover what you've been thinking about over the past twenty four hours or so. If you are able to say what pops into your head aloud, then we have a place to start. If not, then hypnosis or a couple of specific medications might help you to do that."

The Lieutenant couldn't help herself. "Is it painful?"

"Maybe a little bit emotionally painful, but not painful in the conventional sense."

"And what happens if it doesn't work?"

"Well, then we try something else."

"Will it do any damage if it doesn't work?"

"No. None."

"I suppose I'll end up having to do it one way or the other, won't I?"

Doc nodded, and at the look on the Lieutenant's face, spoke up. "As you know, as a senior military medical officer, if I think a test is in a patient's best interests, I have the power to sign off on it, with or without the patient's consent."

She paused, studying the woman in front of her appraisingly. The young woman looked terrified, and Doc couldn't really blame her.

"I'm not a fan of forcing someone to do something they don't want to do, whether or not I have the power to do so. As far as I am concerned, it is your choice. However, I need you to understand that giving you that choice is also within my power, and other officers with the same power might not choose to do so. You are still facing court martial and possible expulsion from the military if you are unable to remember who you are and what happened to you. If you refuse this treatment, I will try everything within my power to help you, but if you still cannot remember, I will eventually have to release you, at which time, and in which case, either your CO or the officers presiding at the Court Martial will probably assign someone else, who very well might insist on this test. So, yes, it is likely that you will end up having to do it one way or the other, Lieutenant."

The Lieutenant nodded to show Doc she understood. Silence filled the room, and then, after some time had passed, the Lieutenant spoke. "Can we save it as a last resort? Try everything else first, and if something else works, great. If not, then we'll do this."

Doc thought for a moment, then nodded once. Yes, that would do nicely.


	7. Chapter 7

In the kerfuffle with the rest of the team pouring into the room and then trying to make contact with Flores, Parker hadn't given another thought to the book in her lap. Now, that it was over, she found herself absently opening and closing it, flipping pages in it before setting it down again. Once she realized, she immediately stopped and held the book out to Nate. He turned his head sideways and looked at her.

"You wanted me to find the book Eliot referenced in his letter. Here it is."

He reached out to take it, and she snatched it back at the last moment, opened it and looked at it. Nate couldn't read the look on her face.

"Parker?", he questioned.

She didn't appear to hear him. Unzipping an inner pocket in her jacket, she withdrew an envelope and smoothed it out on Eliot's desk. Looking over her shoulder, Nate saw that it was the envelope Eliot's letter to her and to the team had been in.

A moment later, she removed the letter, but instead of unfolding it, as he had expected she might, she tucked it back into the pocket it came out of and handed the envelope and the book to Nate.

"What's this?"

"Eliot was injured when he left us this note"

"Yeah. So?"

"I know that when a person injures their hands, it can affect their ability to write. What I need to know is if you think Eliot's injuries would affect his handwriting this much, or in this way."

Nate compared the writing in the book to the writing on the envelope. She was right. It was similar, but not the same. Interesting. Without a word, he passed the two items over to Sophie.

"Another message?", she asked, after a moment.

"I don't know. One thing is certain, we need to go back to Eliot's apartment and talk to the lady who gave us this letter."

"Agreed, but what about Moreau?"

"I've been thinking about that. We don't have any way of knowing if Eliot's disappearance and Moreau's escape are related. We definitely need to go to ground, but we also need to find Nurse Gail, and Eliot, and we need to find out Moreau's whereabouts, which we won't be able to do without electronics. Once we go to ground, we are also effectively blind. Maybe it's better to try to stay a step ahead, or three."

"Are you kidding?"

"Do we have a choice?"

"No, I suppose not. So are we replacing Eliot before we go in?"

Nate motioned for everyone to lean in, and he held a whispered conversation with them for the next twenty minutes.

(0o0)

Parker didn't make a sound as she climbed the stairs in Eliot's apartment building. She didn't know which apartment was his, but worst case scenario, she would knock on a door and ask. She had looked for a directory downstairs, but if there was one, it wasn't where she could see it. She knew it was somewhere on the fourth floor, having overheard that much, one time, accidentally. Opening the door from the stairwell onto the fourth floor, she stopped to regroup, and see if there were any clues that might tell her where he lived. She wasn't sure what she expected to find. Staying as close to the shadows at the side of the wall as possible, she slipped down the hallway. She stopped for a moment at one door, listening hard, and then moved on to another. She had about decided to knock on the next door she came to, when she saw it. A welcome mat with a wolf on it. She nudged it with her foot, then leaned down and lifted it up, but as she expected, there was no key under it. No matter. It was the work of a moment to pick the lock.

(0o0)

Nate and Sophie were keeping the employees of the shop on the ground floor busy, and Hardison was in the van, ready to clear any security measures, or employ any of his other unique talents to support the mission. Just inside the doorway from the outside, stood a man in old, worn jeans and a clean white t-shirt, with a chambray button up over it, unbuttoned. Earphone cords ran down to disappear in the pocket of his jeans, and a hat with company logo on it covered his hair. He danced to music that was apparently coming through his earphones, as he pushed a wide broom around.

Both Nate and Sophie noticed him, and filed the information away for later. Nate thought there was something familiar about the man, though he was sure they had never met.

He turned his attention back to the matter at hand, when he heard the clerk say, "Hey, I remember you. You came in here looking for Doctor Abernathy. Where are your friends?"

Sophie said, "It's just us, today, I'm afraid. A friend of mine is throwing a party with a western theme, and last time I was here, I saw the most gorgeous leather boots I've ever seen, and the cutest little summer sweater. I want to try them on, and find something for him to wear, also."

With those words, she moved over toward the boots, forcing the salesperson to follow her.

(0o0)

Parker opened the door to Eliot's apartment and was shocked to see that it looked like no one had lived there in six months. Blinds were closed, furniture was all covered with furniture cloths, the air was stale and it was at least 80 degrees in there. There was nothing personal ANYWHERE. A small desk sat in one corner of the room, next to a window, and Parker moved instinctively to it, knowing that the drawers might contain the only personal items in the apartment.

Parker froze as she heard something moving in the next room. Walking on the balls of her feet, to make even less noise than she normally made, she edged toward the other room. Just as she reached the door, it burst open, hitting her in the face, while at the same time, something hit her hard from behind, but it was a glancing blow, as she was already falling, and she crumbled to the ground. At the edge of consciousness, she thought she heard a voice say, "Let's go—Donnally made it clear that we were not to be caught in Spencer's rooms," and then she saw two figures walk out of the door of Eliot's apartment.

Then the room started to swim, and as the darkness rose up to meet her, Hardison's face flitted across her mind's eye, and she had the fleeting thought that she should call for help.

"Help," she said, and inside her mind she was yelling, but in reality, she was surprised to find that her voice was little more than a whisper. After that, she gave in to the darkness and the disorientation.

(0o0)

Some time later, Parker woke up, disoriented for a moment because she did not recognize her surroundings. She struggled to sit up and heard a familiar voice. "Easy Parker."

Nate moved over and sat down in a chair that had been placed next to where Parker was lying on his sofa.

"Nate?"

"How are you feeling?"

"I'll live."

"What happened? We couldn't hear much over the coms—just a crash, voices in the background, and when you whispered help."

"There were two people in Eliot's apartment when I got there. I heard them in the bedroom when I was in the main living area. They opened the door just as I was passing by it, and someone hit me from behind, too." She rubbed at the back of her head, wincing when it hurt.

"Did they say anything that might tell us what they were doing there?"

"Not unless you know anyone named Donnally."

Nate shook his head. The name wasn't familiar.

"One of Moreau's men?" Sophie surmised.

"I don't think so," Parker said. "They said Donnally had made it clear that they weren't to be caught in Spencer's rooms."

"Which means it was someone who knew that Doctor Abernathy was an alias," Sophie said.

"And if it wasn't Moreau, then we have another party at play as well."

Suddenly, the final pieces of some giant cosmic puzzle clicked into place in Parker's mind and she knew she would have to tread carefully to both guide the team and remain true to what Eliot had asked of her.

"Nate, do you remember the janitor guy in the hallway outside of the store on the bottom floor of Eliot's building? Did anyone else get a funny feeling about him?"

"I did," Sophie said. "Then I let it go because he disappeared and nothing bad happened down there. Are you saying he was one of the men who attacked you?"

Parker hesitated, then shook her head. "I'll admit, I was only semi conscious when I saw them, so I can't say for sure, but I don't think so. Neither of them moved the same way."

They all fell silent and sat pondering what they knew. The only noise was the tapping of Hardison's fingers, busy at his keyboard, searching any records he could find for a Donnally, and also for any security footage from security cameras in the vicinity of the building. Facial recognition would help a lot, but they had to have pictures to use it.

Finally, Parker had her thoughts in order, and she broke the silence. "This is only a thought, and I could be completely off base, but…"

She broke off, and Nate turned his head sideways and looked at her expectantly.

She continued. "What if all of this is an elaborate set up." Nate looked at her sideways and started to protest, and she said, "Hear me out."

He fell silent, and she continued.

"What if the writing in that book we found was different from the letter because Eliot didn't actually write the letter? What if someone only wanted us to think that he wrote the letter?"

"Then that means…" Nate broke off, considering the implications.

"That means that nothing else is as it seems either," Sophie said.

"Wait, Eliot had to have written that letter, didn't he? I mean how would anyone else have known about the network of friends he was using as security for us?" Hardison added.

"Unless that's what they wanted us to think, and the network works for whomever is doing this," Nate said.

"The network is there, and as far as I can tell, neutral in all of this, which, incidentally, neither proves nor disproves my theory."

"How do you know that?" Nate asked, and Parker shot him a look that told him he probably didn't want to know the answer to that.

"Nate, there are things in that letter that Eliot specifically asked me not to share with the team. Until I know for sure that he didn't write the letter, I have to assume he did, and I will not betray the confidence he asked of me. Going down this path may take me to part of it."

Nate studied her for a long moment, but he knew better than to engage in a staring contest with Parker.

"What if someone else did write that letter, and by not telling us what it says, you put Eliot in more danger than he's already in?"

"What if he did write it, and decides not to speak to or trust me again because I told something he asked me not to tell? I don't think I can live with that." She turned away, struggling to get herself back under control. Sophie nudged Nate and he changed the subject.

"Let's discuss what we do know. Fact One: Eliot and his lady friend, Nurse Gail, left the bar together two nights ago. Fact Two: We traced him here and received a letter from Doctor Abernathy, which means that most of the people he interacts with here don't know his real name. Fact Three: We found his actual apartment and it didn't look like anyone had touched the place in the last six months. In my mind, that indicates that he knew he would be away for awhile, and left by choice," Hardison said.

"Or was preparing to leave by choice when he was taken," Sophie added.

"Fact Four: The network of protection exists and works, as far as we know, but we don't know whether Eliot set it up or someone wants us to believe that he did." Parker added.

"Fact Five: This is not getting us any closer to knowing what actually happened. It would help if we had some more clues."

"Why don't we keep digging and look for anything else Eliot might have left, including a sign to let us know whether it was he who wrote the letter or someone else, either at his request or against his will?" Parker said, and they knew that was what they would have to do.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8:**_

Doc looked at the young woman across from her and decided she needed a break. She glanced at her watch.

"All right, Lieutenant. We land in an hour. I'm going to step down to the main cabin to talk to Colonel Vance. Stay here and rest. We will get to work immediately when we reach my lab, so use this time to relax a bit. If you would like to lie down, there is a place to do that through those curtains. Help yourself to water or juice from the refrigerator. Otherwise, you are welcome to stay here. I'll be back soon.

The young woman nodded, and Doc disappeared through another set of curtains, which the young woman hadn't noticed before. Moments later, she seated herself at the table Vance had been using, in the seat across from his. He wasn't there presently, but he couldn't have gone far, since they were cruising at 30,000 feet, so she knew he would be returning soon. As she had that thought, he folded his large frame into the chair next to her and said, "Well, how's the girl?"

Doc shook her head. To this point, the Lieutenant still didn't remember her name. This was going to be more challenging than she thought.

"Can you help her remember?"

Doc looked thoughtful. "I can, but even with that, there's a risk. If she's not ready to remember, it could do more harm than good to force it. I'd prefer to give her the time she needs to remember, but we may not have that luxury."

"What makes you think so?" He had an inkling he knew, but wanted to be sure they were on the same page.

Looking around to be sure no one was listening that she hadn't seen, she lowered her voice and said, "I sense that this is the Nurse Gail who met with Eliot two nights ago. She can't tell me one way or the other, but if that's true, we have a little more than sixty hours left to find what we are looking for. If the two are connected, that means the time I have to help her remember also draws short."

"It could mean more than that. I'm going to call ahead and have some MPs waiting to escort us to your office. As a safety precaution. You should take any other precautions you need to take as well."

"Noted. Come on back to the office and make your call."

He rose and followed her back toward the office. They were almost there when they heard a crash and then the sound of breaking glass. Putting a finger to her lips for silence, Doc picked up her pace and walked back through the door to her office to find the young Lieutenant on her knees in front of one of the now open drawers of Doc's desk, clutching a file folder in one hand and bleeding profusely from the other.

Doc stopped at the door and held out a hand to stop Vance as well. "Lieutenant, what happened?"

The Lieutenant stared straight ahead, muttering some sort of gibberish under her breath, while blood from her injured hand dripped onto the floor. She didn't seem to notice they were there.

Vance drew his service revolver. Doc shook her head at him, and he glared back, still holding the weapon trained on the young woman. Warily, Doc moved further into the room, watching her patient for any signs of recognition. There were none.

Speaking softly to her, Doc moved closer. Suddenly realizing she wasn't alone in the room any longer, the Lieutenant turned toward Doc holding something in her hand.

"Easy, Lieutenant," she said, softly. Doc reached for the scalpel she held in her hand at the same time the young woman lunged for her. The blow was deflected by the fact that they moved at the same time, and Doc easily folded the woman's arms up behind her back, forcing her to drop the blade she was holding, but not before the scalpel caught Doc in the arm, cutting it rather badly.

When he saw that Doc had the situation under control, Vance holstered his service revolver and moved on into the room. He tied the young woman's hands with some rope Doc kept aboard for various purposes and secured her to the chair she had been sitting in before.

Under Doc's supervision, Vance cleaned the young woman's hand for her, rubbed an antibiotic salve on it, and bandaged it. Doc was pleased to see that it probably wouldn't need stitches. She looked at Vance. "She'll need a tetanus shot."

Vance nodded and the two senior officers rose and moved to the counter together. Vance retrieved Doc's keys from her and found the vials he was looking for. He drew liquid into a syringe and turned back toward the young woman. Doc placed her good hand on his arm and shook her head.

Vance's eyes narrowed and he gave her a sideways look. "She's not with us yet. We had to clean her hand because I needed to see how bad it was bleeding. The rest can wait until she understands what is going on."

Vance nodded, capped the syringe, and laid it on the counter.

Doc washed the blood off of her arm at the small sink in her office, and then tied a clean towel around it to stem the blood flow. Doc sat down next to her patient, holding pressure on the towel and watching the woman in front of her. She saw a spark in the Lieutenant's eyes, and then the woman slumped in her chair. She gave Doc a sideways look.

"Did I—do—that to you?"

Doc nodded.

"I don't know what's wrong with me."

"What do you remember?"

"Nothing. It's like trying to see through a heavy fog. Can you help me?"

Doc hesitated for a moment and then nodded. After all, she might be the only person who could.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Vance asked, clearly concerned.

"I don't think we have any other choice," Doc replied. She looked at the Lieutenant. "The procedure we discussed before just moved from last resort to the first thing we will try. And I think we'll keep you restrained until we figure out the problem."

The Lieutenant looked at her unhappily, but nodded. After what she had done, the Doctor's actions were reasonable.

"Now that that is settled, let's get your arm treated," Vance said, taking Doc by the uninjured arm and leading her to her exam table in the corner of her office, where he had a suture kit and other first aid supplies already set up.

She sat down and started talking quietly, making sure the large man did everything he needed to do to sew up the wound. By the time the plane landed, she had a neat white bandage wrapped around her arm. She started to get up and Vance put a hand out to stop her.

"We're not finished yet," he said, rising and moving around to the other side of her. She saw the syringes in his hand and gave him a meaningful look.

"Tetanus," he said, injecting her with the first one. It had to stay in for a few minutes so they waited, so many unspoken thoughts flying through the air between them. Finally, he removed that one and injected her with the other one.

"And antibiotics."

As soon as he finished, she was on her feet. "Let's go."

The young woman rose tentatively, as though she wasn't sure what would happen next, and Doc studied her for a moment. Then she said, "All will be well, Lieutenant, if you can trust me and do what I tell you to do." The other woman nodded and Doc spoke again. "Come on. Let's get this over with, shall we?"

The MPs surrounded the two senior officers and the young woman between them and accompanied them all the way up to Doc's office. As they were walking, Vance put a hand on Doc's shoulder and hung back a little. The small army of MPs surrounding them moved slightly to allow for the expansion of their little group. Doc looked up at Vance and he handed her a file folder. She realized it was the folder the Lieutenant had taken from her desk, as it had small drops of blood on it. Trying to figure out what Vance was trying to show her, she turned the folder over in her hands, but was still puzzled.

"Open it," Vance whispered in her ear. She opened it and suddenly understood. There, looking back at her from the center of the page, was a picture of the person to whom this file belonged. She was staring straight into the intense gaze of Eliot Spencer.

She shot Vance a questioning look. "It makes sense according to your theory."

That it did. She nodded. Doc was quiet, thinking hard for the rest of the trip upstairs. When the two senior officers and the Lieutenant were safely in Doc's office, she ordered four female MPs to stay inside and sent the others out to guard her office from the hallway. She motioned the young woman to a seat in front of her desk, and Vance sat down in the chair next to her.

"Now, then, Lieutenant, I think I'd like to hear the story of what happened when I left you to rest in my office on the plane."

"I don't know. I wish I could give you those answers, but all I remember is feeling really tired and then I guess I blacked out. I came back to myself tied to the chair after your arm was cut. At that time, I somehow had the feeling that I did it, but I don't remember anything about doing it or why I might have done so."

"What did you want with Eliot Spencer's medical record?"

The young Lieutenant was not a person whose face hid her surprise well. "Eliot is a good friend of mine, and in fact, I treated him a while ago when he got into a scrape with some Russians. Maybe it was a name I recognized. I don't know."

Doc sat considering the information she had for a few minutes. Then she took out her phone and wrote a text message. Finally, after a time, she looked up to find the young woman watching her.

"All right. Follow me, Lieutenant." She nodded at Vance, telling him to follow as well. As they left, the MPs fell into step in front of, to the side, and behind the Doctor and her small party. She moved down one floor and into a rarely used treatment room.

"Strip, Lieutenant."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am."

"I want you to go in there and strip, then lie down on the exam table and cover yourself with the blanket that is on the table there." She indicated the MPs. "These ladies will give you five minutes to get settled, and if you aren't undressed by then, they are under orders to help you out. If you are covered with the blanket when they get there, they will simply restrain arms and legs and post themselves in the corners as a guard. I'll be in in a few minutes." Seeing the look on the girl's face, Doc laid a hand on her shoulder. "Trust me." The girl nodded and allowed the MPs to escort her into the room.

Doc moved a little further down the hall and escorted Vance into a viewing room. "I texted Shelley. He's doing some research and will be calling. If this is what I think it is, I'll need his help. When he calls, patch it into my comm?"

He nodded. "What's going on, Doc?"

"It's too dangerous to talk too much about it now, and risk being overheard."

"Overheard by whom?"

"Exactly."

With that, she moved down into the treatment room where she had left the young Lieutenant, and was pleased to find her on the table, covered by a blanket, as ordered. She made eye contact with the leader of the MPs, a commander, who nodded at her. She nodded back.

"Nicely done, Lieutenant," she said, touching some buttons on a panel on her desk. The large boxy instrument mounted on the ceiling lowered itself into position and the young woman's eyes grew wide.

"Just relax, Lieutenant. It's just going to take some scans. Completely painless." A moment later, the machine had completed its first sweep and it beeped. Moving over behind it, Doc glanced at the screen. There was something, right at the level of the hairline, but she couldn't tell what it was.

She heard a voice in her ear. Shelley.

"Sound bafflers on," she said, into the air. "Jammers on."

"Sound bafflers and Jammers on," the air replied.

"Show me what you are looking at," Shelley said. She picked up the pair of safety glasses and put them on, then she touched a button on the console.

She heard a low whistle. "Wow. I'm assuming you need to remove it."

"Affirmative."

"All right. We have to do this very carefully. Do exactly what I tell you."

Doc moved over to the head of her patient's bed, and rubbed a topical anaesthetic on the place where she needed to make her incision. When the woman looked up at her, she put a finger to her lips and said, "I have to work fast. I'll explain later. Close your eyes."

The woman did so.

After the anesthesia took effect, it was the matter of a moment to make a small incision and have the tiny square of metal in front of her. Now she had to move very carefully to extract it without disturbing the almost microscopic wire running into the young woman's brain. Finally, after a few tense moments and a couple of near misses, it was done. Doc breathed a sigh of relief and she was pretty sure Shelley let fly with a couple of swear words in a language she thought she knew.

"Get rid of that thing fast, Doc. If it is the kind that can be detonated from afar, whoever put it there will do so when they realize they've lost contact with it. You don't want to be holding it and you don't want anything you don't want to lose nearby when that happens."

She didn't have to be told twice. She trotted across the hall to the morgue, where she deposited the apparatus into a small, lead lined box that was used for radioactive tissue samples normally, and put it into one of the lockers. The charge shouldn't be big enough to blow more than the box up, and the locker would contain the blast. She hoped.

Moments later, she had unfastened the woman's restraints. She said, "My MPs and I will step into the hallway while you get dressed. Meet me there. We'll discuss this and the next steps in my office."

As she stepped into the hallway to wait for her patient, she heard a muffled blast, and was surprised at how loud it sounded. Maybe the charge was bigger than she thought. She dashed into the morgue, to find that the door of the locker containing the apparatus had been blown off of its hinges, but the rest of the damage was minimal.


End file.
